Ten Challenges for the un in 2021-2022

Ten Challenges for the UN in 2021-2022 
Crisis Group Special Briefing N°6, 13 September 2021 
Page 14 
 
fair share of revenue, they should also have a say in managing the island’s natural 
resources. Exploring room for convergence on this matter could lessen tensions. 
7. 
Helping repatriate ISIS-affiliated detainees from Syria 
The UN faces a humanitarian crisis in north-eastern Syria, where 60,000-70,000 
individuals, including women and children, associated with ISIS are detained in 
squalid conditions at the al-Hol detention camp and other sites.
32
The detainees face 
rampant disease and endemic violence.
33
While the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian 
Democratic Forces (SDF) oversee the camps, ISIS cells maintain a presence in al-Hol, 
terrorising fellow detainees and kidnapping youngsters to train as fighters. While the 
SDF and the U.S.-led coalition did crack down on violence in al-Hol with a series of 
raids in the first half of 2021, the sites quieted down only briefly and attacks – includ-
ing on women – have ticked back up in recent months. 
While roughly a third of the detainees are Syrians, the majority are from Iraq and 
other countries. Some UN members – notably Russia and Central Asian states – 
have repatriated many of their citizens from al-Hol. Others, including Canada, the UK, 
Australia and many members of the European Union, have largely refused to do so. 
While Iraq cleared 500 families for repatriation in early 2021, the process was re-
portedly bumpy, with little real planning for reintegrating the first set of returnees, 
who were moved to camps in Iraq that lacked sufficient food and shelter.
34
A cluster of UN agencies and offices are working together on prosecution, reha-
bilitation and reintegration issues for the detainees. This process involves the UN 
Children’s Fund and the High Commissioner for Human Rights as well as counter-
terrorism agencies, but cooperation on the ground is spotty. Human rights officers 
feel marginalised and worry that the UN is supporting detainees’ return to countries 
where they may face further persecution. In the meantime, those controlling the 
camps should share more detailed information on issues such as the exact numbers 
and whereabouts of detainees and the location and administration of smaller deten-
tion sites, in particular those where adolescents are held in reportedly horrific condi-
tions, separate from their parents. 
Without steady repatriations, al-Hol and neighbouring detention sites are liable 
to remain a security and humanitarian challenge and an ISIS recruiting ground.
35
This issue is divisive in the Security Council. When Indonesia tabled a generic resolu-
tion on “foreign terrorist fighters” in 2020, European members of the Council refused 
to accept any reference to repatriation in the text. The U.S., insisting on keeping this 
reference, vetoed the final version.
36
Despite these tensions, Council members and UN agencies can take steps to better 
manage the treatment and return of detainees, especially women and children. These 
32
For more, see Crisis Group Middle East Report N°208, 
Women and Children First: Repatriating 
the Westerners Affiliated with ISIS
, 18 November 2019.
33
On the tenuous health situation in al-Hol, see Crisis Group Commentary, “Virus Fears Spread at 
Camps for ISIS Families in Syria’s North East”, 7 April 2020.
34
For more, see Crisis Group Middle East Briefing N°79, 
Exiles in Their Own Country: Dealing with 
Displacement in Post-ISIS Iraq
, 19 October 2020.
35
For more on the risks of ISIS recovering from its defeat, see Crisis Group Middle East Report 
N
o
207, 
Averting an ISIS Resurgence in Iraq and Syria
, 11 October 2019.
36
“U.S. isolated as it vetoes U.N. resolution on foreign militants”, Reuters, 1 September 2020.

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